You don't have to use the mouse; on a Mac keyboard you can use shift+enter+fn. And, on a 'normal' keyboard, I think it's shift and insert.
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David ThomasSep 25 '11 at 21:16

I confirm. I just use another blend of copy-fu on a 'normal' keyboard: Ctrl+Insert for copy (and Shift+Insert for paste) which does not conflict with program interrupt Ctrl+C
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konstantin.zaikinJan 22 at 9:19

10 Answers
10

You can change the keybinding for Cut and Paste from the default Ctrl+Shift+C, Ctrl+Shift+V to what you say, namely Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, in the Edit -> Keyboard Shortcuts menu. Though you should also change the default terminal meaning associated with Ctrl+C (interrupt), for example in this way

stty intr ^J

(I chose Ctrl+J because I don't remember it is associate with some action, but you can make your own choice.)

I don't think it is possible to retain the default interrupt action for Ctrl+C only when there is no text highlighted.

Ctrl + C is already assigned to another command, which is the one that interrupts the program that is running in the terminal
For example, ping www.google.com will start pinging Google until you tell it to stop. The way you do it, is by pressing Ctrl + C

So, they couldn't just change the assignment of that combination.

Highlight the text you want to copy, press Ctrl + Shift + C and it is copied to the clipboard. Ctrl + Shift + V and you paste it.

Rather than saying that those keybindings have other specific meanings in the terminal, it is probably more correct to say that various console applications expect to be able to use them, so if the terminal emulator didn't pass them on it might make those apps unusable.
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James HenstridgeSep 26 '11 at 0:28

OS X is a bit smarter: when some text is selected it interprets Ctrl+C as copy and when no text is selected it interprets it as interrupt.
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BehrangFeb 10 '14 at 2:44

Apart from what @Dan said, there's another option for copy-pasting text in Linux which I'm finding much faster and easier to use, since there's no need to swich from mouse (which you're using to make the selection) to keyboard:

selecting text with mouse copies it to clipboard

middle-click pastes it.

This feature is especially useful in terminal, for example when assembling a command from bits of text which are already on screen.

This works in all applications, so it's possible to copy-paste text from a web page to terminal etc.

The clipboard buffer used for middle-click copy-paste is separate from the one used for Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V, which makes possible to have two different bits of text copied at the same time.

As already noted, Ctrl + C is typically used for interrupting a program. But instead of using Ctrl + Shift + C to copy, which I do much more frequently than interrupting a process, I change the setting to have Ctrl + C to copy and Ctrl + Shift + C to interrupt. You can do this in GNOME Terminal by going to "Edit" -> "Keyboard Shortcuts..." and map the "Copy" action to Ctrl + C and "Paste" to Ctrl + V.

As already stated, Ctrl-C won't work because of the interrupt usage, but I just figured out a way that worked for me. My goal was to have only two keys, not three, and preferably something I'm used to, and not in too inconvenient a place on the keyboard. The keyboard I have on my Linux box has a "Windows" key, in the same place as the Command key on a Mac. So I just went to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, when I changed the shortcuts to use this key, it says Super+C and Super+V. I sometimes use a Mac too, so this was easy to get used to.